


Don't Call It a War

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Series: Fidelity [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Call It a War

It's always there, in the back of Nate's mind.

He hasn't seen Brad in more than eight months, and doesn't expect to see him until Easter at the earliest. The last Nate knew, Brad was in Helmland Province, running patrols and taking out Taliban insurgents, but that information is eight weeks old now; his connections in the Corps can tell him that Brad's alive, but they can't tell Nate exactly where he is. It's not something he can feel, either, only a pressing sense of _far away_.

He knows that if anything were to happen, he would be the platoon commander's first call. Not that he wouldn't already know. But he still checks his personal email several times a day, and keeps his cell phone on constantly. Sometimes he sets it on the desk in front of him and waits. Those are the bad days; those are the days he knows something's going down halfway across the world, and he's powerless to affect the outcome. 

Those are the days he has to talk himself through every single step he needs to take to get through the waking hours. And if sometimes he has to stop moving and just breathe for a second, at least he knows what it is this time. 

Most days, though, things are okay. It's almost his last year of the program. Knowing there's not much further to go makes it easier - once he graduates, he can go wherever he wants. He likes the program, but he just wants to be _done_. 

"I've heard other veterans describe their time in the military as the best years of their lives. Would you agree with this?" a reporter asks him one day, calling from San Diego. She sounds young and slightly awkward, and he wonders if this is her first job, cold-calling people for quotes. 

"I don't think I'm old enough to describe any years as the best of my life," Nate replies, "especially not the time I spent in a war zone, getting shot at. But it was certainly the most transformative experience of my life."

He gets an email from Tom Ricks about writing op-ed for the Times, and they strike up a correspondence that turns into a friendship. He accepts the occasional request to speak to undergrads about the Corps. A public television producer calls to ask if he'd be willing to talk about coming home from Iraq, and he says yes. A film crew comes; in the glare of their lights, he tells them calmly about the nightmares. They film him running along the river. 

People ask if he ever thinks about the men he led in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Every single day," Nate answers honestly. 

He doesn't tell anyone that some days it's more like every single minute. 

At least the headaches are few and far between, and the tinnitus has been gone for months. Sometimes he can feel Brad's exhaustion, even halfway around the world, and Nate does his best to offer back whatever energy he can. It's the _awareness_ that never stops, and even though Nate's accepted this, loves Brad even, a part of him still feels cheated. Like he'd come into a movie fifteen minutes late, or picked up a novel that was missing the first chapter. He starts multiple emails about this, trying to explain the feeling to Brad, but they're all unfinished drafts. He wouldn't send them anyway. Brad has a job to do, no matter where in Afghanistan he might be.

Nate misses him every single hour without fail. He's promised himself that when Brad comes home, Nate is finally going to say all the things he should have said before, starting with _I love you_ and ending with _I still don't know how to do this right_.

*

Six weeks later, Nate is sitting up on the kitchen counter with Brad pressed between his knees. “Did you find a girlfriend to keep you satisfied while I was away?” Brad asks, the words damp against Nate’s neck.

“No,” Nate breathes. He fists his hands in Brad’s shirt. “Did you?”

Brad laughs against his skin, his fingers tightening on Nate’s hips. “No, sir,” he replies, and Nate’s whole body ignites.

“You were gone so long, I forgot how my body responds to you,” he says, a little breathlessly, yanking Brad even closer.

“And?”

“It’s better than I remembered.”

Brad’s mouth curves in a smile. “You want dinner before or after we have sex?”

Nate presses his heels to the backs of Brad’s knees. He's had a long time to think about this, to draw up clear and precise lists of what he wants. He says, “I want you to take your clothes off. All of them, right now. I want to see you naked.”

Brad strips off everything he’s wearing, right in the middle of the kitchen. Nate watches in fascination as Brad’s ugly cargo shorts land in the middle of the table, on top of a discarded pile of mail and newspapers, dropped and forgotten there when he’d come in through the back door and realized Brad was in the house.

Nate’s seen him naked before, in the desert during war and in the delousing spray after war and in the showers at Pendleton both before and after war. But never like this. Never long and golden-tan, smiling at him, cock stiffening against his thigh, nipples tight from arousal and not just the temperature.

“You’re still sitting on the counter,” Brad says, sort of lazily, reaching a hand up to rub the back of his neck. He seems perfectly fine with the idea of standing naked in the the kitchen while Nate looks at him.

“Yeah.” Nate lifts his coffee cup and takes a sip.

“Get your ass down from there and take your clothes off.”

Nate grins and jumps down. He feels more awake than he has in weeks. He slides his fingers through Brad’s and pulls him down the hall to the bedroom. “I changed the sheets this morning,” he says conversationally.

“I don’t give a fuck about the sheets, I just lived in a fucking Humvee for two months. Get naked.”

Nate sheds his t-shirt and shorts, kicking them away. He can’t stop looking at Brad, taking in the difference between tanned face and neck, paler chest. The way sunburn is peeling across the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, you look good.”

“Personal feelings, sir,” Brad drawls, grinning, and Nate pushes him down onto the bed.

He thought he was prepared for the feel of skin on skin, but he wasn’t prepared for this. Not for it to be like there was no place besides _here_ , no place besides Brad’s body that felt like home, like there was nothing else he wanted to feel besides this ever again.

“I missed you,” he murmurs. It’s an unnecessary proclamation, and Brad doesn’t reply, just arches up to press his face into Nate’s neck. Nate sucks in a breath.

Brad whispers, "What, Nate?"

"Are you okay?" It's the only way he knows how to ask, even though it's a terrible fucking question and he'd hated being asked the same thing when he came home. But he knows what it's like, and he needs to know if Brad is going to try and roll them both underneath the bed if a car backfires outside.

Then he wonders why the fuck he's asking, because of course Brad will try to cover them both, even if it is just someone's shitty muffler. Even Nate still jerks reflexively at loud noises, still always knows the best places to swing into should he spot an RPG tube sticking out of the window of some soccer mom's SUV.

Brad lifts a brow. "Better now that I'm here."

He sounds unconcerned. Nate decides to take his word for it and leave the subject alone. "Good to hear," he replies, and slides his hands up the smoother, paler skin on the inside of Brad's arms so that he can wrap his fingers around Brad's wrists, press them into the mattress on either side of his head.

Brad looks up at him, smiling. "Keep going, sir."

Nate leans down to kiss him and gets lost in it. The itch he's had for months starts to disappear, that prickle of _something_ along the back of his neck soothed by Brad's presence and Brad's skin and Brad's mouth, hot on his own and giving back just as much as Nate's dishing out. 

He lets go of Brad to slide a hand down between them, walking his fingertips over Brad's ribs, counting out against them one MRE a day or less, not enough sleep and too many No-Doze, feels Brad willing himself not to move. 

"You don't have to hold still," he says, pressing a kiss underneath Brad's ear as he gets his hand where he wants it, the heat of Brad's still sun-baked body just like the desert again, reminding Nate of when this had started. As he closes his hand around Brad's cock, he murmurs, "The whole time you were gone, I could still feel you. Still feel that you were alive and fighting. That you'd come back."

"Come back to _you_ , Nate," Brad replies, his voice hoarse. And then he breathes into Nate's mouth and arches into his touch and Nate stops knowing where he ends and Brad begins because it doesn't matter, if it had ever mattered at all. 

*

"I have news," Brad murmurs as they lay tangled in the bed, half drowsing. 

Brad's head is balanced on his chest and Nate can feel the exhalation of the words on the damp skin of his stomach. It makes him shiver. Whatever the bond was between them, it had enjoyed what they'd just done, and Nate can feel Brad's mental presence curled up at the base of his skull as surely as he can feel the bumps of Brad's spine underneath his fingertips. "Yeah?"

"With my promotion comes a few options."

"Yeah?" Nate says again, rubbing the curve of Brad's ear, waiting for what he has to say.

"And Jacksonville's a little closer than Oceanside."

Two thousand miles closer, Nate knows. More than that. It's a long drive, but doable, and the airfare isn't prohibitively expensive. Jacksonville could mean seeing each other at least once a month, if not more. 

"And if you end up in D.C., that's only seven hours by car," Brad continues. He tilts his head up, his gaze searching. "Nate?"

Nate traces his fingertips over the tattoo on Brad's shoulder. "I told you once before that you don't need to rearrange your career for me, that I don’t want you to rearrange your career for me, and I meant it. I still mean it."

He's serious. “Brad, I mean it,” he says again.

“I know you do.” It’s barely a whisper. "But I want _this_." Brad's hands tighten on his hips, fingertips digging in hard enough to leave bruises. Nate wants him to leave bruises, wants him to leave even more proof than just the ring on Nate's hand. And Brad, as if he's reading Nate's thoughts, adds, "Don't you?"

Nate looks up at the ceiling, sliding his fingers over Brad's short hair.

"I still want to keep you where I can see you," Brad murmurs, and moves up over him, planting his knees on either side of Nate's hips. He drops his hands to the mattress above Nate's shoulders. Nate feels as though Brad is caging him in on purpose, but doesn't feel the urge to attempt an escape. Or the urge to move at all.

Brad looks down at him. "You've got a year left in the program." It's not a question, but Nate nods in affirmation anyway. "And then what?"

"I don't know. Honestly."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't want to worry about it right now," Nate replies, sliding a hand around the back of Brad's neck and pulling him down, lining their mouths up for a kiss.

*

Nate wakes up alone, twisted in the sheets with the blankets all kicked off onto the floor. There’s a pillow underneath his knee but none under his head. A dull ache throbs in his hip. The sheets around him are cool, signifying that he’s been the only one in the bed for at least a little while. In a startling instant, he realizes he can’t feel Brad.

Nate sits straight up, kicks his way free of the sheets wrapped around him, and climbs out of the bed. Standing up makes him lightheaded. He remembers he hasn't eaten since breakfast. He throws the blankets back up onto the mattress, then goes to check the rest of the house for Brad, trying to ignore the odd surge of panic. He can barely remember the last time he couldn’t feel Brad’s presence at all. It’s disconcerting. The panic threatens again, pushing up against his throat.

Brad is in the living room, laying on his back on the floor and staring up at the ceiling. “Brad,” Nate says, and it comes out hoarse and somewhat strangled, like his voice is being held hostage by the tension at the top of his spine.

“I don’t know,” Brad replies. He doesn’t sound any better than Nate feels. Nate shuffles over to him and drops down onto the carpet. He stretches his body out alongside Brad’s. He waits for the pleasant hum of contact that he’s gotten so used to. It doesn’t come. Just Brad’s skin warm against his, the way Nate remembers other bodies feeling, back before all of this began. He turns, settling his palm on Brad’s upper chest, fingers seeking the throb of pulse in Brad’s neck, something Nate had always found comforting. It’s still comforting, but there’s no tingle in his fingertips like there had been.

Under his hand, Brad’s chest heaves as he takes in a huge breath. His mouth opens as if he’s going to speak, but then closes again.

“Brad,” Nate says again, and yeah, that’s definitely panic creeping up on him.

Brad shakes his head.

 _Did you really think it was going to last forever?_ asks the little voice in his head. Nate turns his face into Brad’s shoulder and thinks that really, he had.

 _You got too used to it,_ the little voice says, mockingly, as though Nate should always know better than to get used to something.

He probably should know better. "What did we do?" he asks.

"I don't fucking know."

It couldn't have been the sex. He doesn't want it to have been the sex, because that blissed-out, breathless feeling was too good. He'd wanted to stay in that feeling forever.

“Let’s go back to bed for a while,” Nate says after a few minutes. “Maybe it will be okay again when we wake up.”

Brad follows him into the bedroom without a word. Nate wants to ambush the panic he’s feeling, bind it and throw it in a cell somewhere, stop it from digging claws into his shoulders. They fold their bodies back down onto the bed; Brad curves around him but it doesn't feel the same.

He lies awake for a long time. He thinks Brad does too, but he can't be sure.

*

It’s not better when they get up again. Nate’s at a loss, so he proposes going out for dinner, just to get them out of the house. He rubs condensation from his beer bottle onto the tabletop, watches Brad do the same.

“We could have the agreements voided,” Brad says, after what feels to Nate like silence longer than any Iraqi invasion. He doesn't look up from his plate as he says it, but Nate can see the deep furrows on his forehead. “You wouldn’t have to stay listed as my beneficiary.”

He fumbles his fork, narrowly avoiding having it clatter to the floor. Voiding the agreements is the last thing on his mind. “No.”

“No, sir?”

Anger twists in Nate's chest. “What do you think I’m going to do, Brad - heave a big sigh of relief, say 'Thank God that’s over’, tell you to have a nice life? Fuck that. All I thought about - _obsessed_ about, even - the whole time you were gone was how I wished we could do this the normal way, without some crazy fucking curse that made us want to be together. You said it yourself, in the note. How if you’d had the chance, you could have loved me regardless.”

Brad looked up at Nate's mention of the note, and Nate makes up his mind. He sets the bottle down and leans forward, looking directly into Brad’s eyes. “Here’s our chance to do it right.” A brief pause. “Unless you don’t want to.”

He doesn’t say _unless you really don’t love me_. Brad stares at him, and Nate tries not to twitch, tries not to flinch. He’s no stranger to pain, but this is one he doesn’t want to inflict upon himself unless he has to. Unless Brad really means what he’s sort-of-saying about walking away from this.

Brad says, after a very long, very terrifying silence in which Nate alternately wants to throw up or walk out, “This is going to be exceedingly... complicated.”

"No shit."

Brad's still looking at him like he can't believe Nate is really proposing this. "You have a plan?"

"No," Nate replies, and that gets half a smile from Brad. "You think we need a - a dating plan?"

"Even if I take the transfer, we're still fifteen hours apart."

"I'm not letting go of this."

"Nate. I didn't actually think you would."

He exhales in relief. "So.. a plan, then. When do you have to report in at Lejeune?"

Brad blinks at him. "How did you know?"

"You wouldn't have told me about it if you weren't going to take the transfer."

Brad scoffs, but he's smiling a little. "I have to go back to Pendleton for two weeks, pack up, say goodbye. It's gonna be weird, not living in the same neighborhood as Poke and Gina anymore. I'll have to make new friends."

"I have faith you will," Nate assures him, grinning, because he knows Tony had basically forced Brad to accept his friendship and off-duty company. Left to his own devices, Brad would have happily surfed, or ridden his bike, in solitary - and not given another thought to _friends_.

He looks at Brad and knows what he's thinking, at least this time. It's written all over Brad's face. "I'm not going to do to you what she did to you."

"You can't say that for sure."

"But I can. Brad, you know the person I am."

Brad's foot touches his under the table. "I do."

"All right. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, what do you want to do for the rest of the time you're here?"

"I don't care about being touristy." Brad thanks the waitress as she sets down their meals. "I'll do what you do."

Nate peels apart his cheeseburger to add ketchup. "I mostly go to class and do homework," he says with a shrug.

"Then I will also do homework," Brad declares, and flashes him a smile, one that Nate remembers from Iraq, one that means _In no way do I agree with that I am smiling about._

Nate laughs at him, and says, "I'll let you read what I've written about - about being a Marine. If you want."

"You're writing a book?"

"No, it's..." Here he makes a face, having to put it this way. "More like therapy. I wasn't going to show it to anyone."

"But now me."

"I would show it to you anyway," Nate confesses quietly.

Brad's face is - inexplicably, Nate thinks - fond, and gentle. _I want things to be how they were_ , he thinks to himself. _I want to feel like I love him._

It's then he knows, surely and fiercely, that he wants to fight for this. "You know that if things were different, I'd never let you leave."

And Brad doesn't ask for clarification, doesn't press Nate to explain what he means. He just says, "I know."

*

Brad stays for two more nights. They keep a distance of sorts, unsure about things, but Brad sleeps with Nate in the bed. The last morning, Nate lays on his back and watches the reflection of the sunrise on the wall. 

"Do you think maybe we're too calm about this?" he asks. He turns his head to look at Brad and sees Brad already looking back with wide eyes. Nate lifts his hand, presses the backs of his fingers to the line of Brad's jaw. "You know that feeling when you crawl into bed at the end of a cold day and pull the blankets tight around you and close your eyes, and for five, ten seconds everything is perfect, safe and warm? That was how it felt for me."

Against his touch, he feels Brad swallow. "Does that even make sense?" Nate whispers. 

"Yes."

He looks up at the ceiling again. "We never would have figured this out if I hadn't found your sweatshirt with my stuff."

"I put it in the box, the one from your office. When you left." 

"You..."

"I didn't know, Nate. Not that it was - how it was." 

"You don't do anything without a reason." He feels Brad's fingers curl loosely around his wrist as he says it. It's a warm touch, gentle, nothing more than the weight of fingertips. 

"I wanted... I don't know what I wanted. I know, that sounds fucking abhorrent; that I, of all people, would not know, clearly and without a doubt, what I wanted. But mostly I - I didn't want you to forget about us."

Nate glances over and sees Brad looking up at the blank ceiling. Then he rolls away, gets up off the bed and opens his laptop. He's got an extra flash drive in one of the desk drawers, and transfers all his writing onto it. When everything has copied, he tosses the drive onto Brad's chest and says, "I could never forget about you."

Brad closes his hand around the small drive and nods. 

"Don't - don't show that to anyone else," Nate says, quieter.

"I won't."

They get dressed and Brad packs his things, and Nate rides the train with him to the airport. Waiting in line to check in, Brad says, "So, I'll - call you when I get to Lejeune?"

"You can settle in." _It's not like I'll know you're there,_ Nate wants to say, but doesn't. He slides his hands into his pockets. "Call me when you're ready."

Brad's eyes narrow. "You still don't believe that I want this."

"I can't feel that you want this anymore, and it freaks me the fuck out," Nate forces himself to reply, in as calm a voice as he can manage. And quietly, because they're in an airport. "You have to give me that, at least."

Brad looks at him for a long moment. His expression is one Nate can't decipher and Nate's almost to the point where it feels like he's choking under the weight of silence when Brad says, "I'll call you," and goes to join the security line. 

It's not until he's back on the rattling subway that Nate remembers his plan to tell Brad that he loves him. 

*

Sometimes he reaches for the bond, and is disappointed again every time when it's not there. Brad seems just as much at a loss, and their nightly phone conversations for the first few weeks after Brad moves to North Carolina are stilted and awkward. But they get better at it as time goes on, and soon the routine of talking to Brad every night before he goes to sleep gets to be just as comforting as it was before. 

Nate's juggling his gym bag and his keys, attempting to get into his house after going to the gym, when his phone rings. It's Tom Ricks, calling from D.C. "So I recommended you for a job today, at this new think tank that's starting up," he says, as Nate tries not to drop the cell and all his other stuff. 

"Uh-huh." Nate tries to pick out the front door key one-handed. 

"It's a part-time, a few hours a week - basically, you get to offer your informed opinion for money."

Nate laughs, finally getting the key into the lock. He shoulders open the door. "Email me the info. I'll look at it when I get to Baltimore."

"Going out of town for the weekend?"

"Something like that," he answers. "I'll call you on Monday?"

"Sounds good."

Inside the house, he trades his running shoes for loafers. He'd showered at the gym, after a long workout that he'd done mostly to kill time before getting on the road. Now he folds a few clean shirts into his duffel bag, grabs his toiletry bag, phone charger, and the piece of paper he'd written the address on, pats his back pocket to be sure he's got his wallet. 

Traffic should be light. He's deliberately leaving before rush hour, even though he knows he'll get to Baltimore before Brad will have crossed from Virginia. At least he's driving normally now, no more swerving underneath bridges.

 _on the road,_ he sends to Brad before plugging in his phone for the trip. He turns the radio up as he merges onto the freeway, singing along in an effort to ignore the anticipation thrumming in his chest. 

The most recent text from Brad reads _still driving_ when Nate arrives at the small bed and breakfast they'd found online, a tree-lined corner property with a well-kept Victorian square in the middle. He checks in, telling the woman behind the counter that there's still another person coming but he's not sure when. She points him up the stairs and to the left.

The room is simple, wooden furniture and floors, cream-colored fabrics. Nate unpacks his laptop and plugs it in, figuring he can use homework to distract himself while he waits for Brad to arrive.

He's nearly asleep when he hears the key in the lock and knows it's Brad. It's not _knowing_ , like it used to be, and Nate has to swallow hard against the fact that he misses the feeling. How could he miss something that had hurt so much in the beginning?

The small light in the foyer switches on, and Nate turns over in the bed to see Brad haloed in the yellow light. Something relaxes inside of him. Finally, he feels like he can take a full breath again. He smiles at Brad over the pillow jammed under his chin, and Brad smiles back. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," he says, locking the door. He looks tired but not exhausted; he looks like he's spent a few hours driving, but not like he was dragged behind a truck the whole way. Nate knows this is an improvement over the way traveling used to make them feel.

"It's all right," he says. "I wasn't asleep yet."

"When did you get here?" Brad slides his duffel from his shoulder, then kicks off his shoes. In worn jeans and a loose t-shirt bearing the logo of a surf shop in Maui, he stretches out on the bed next to Nate.

"A few hours ago. I got caught up on my homework."

"Homework," Brad scoffs, pressing close, sliding a hand over Nate's waist. His touch is warm and welcome, and Nate leans back against him. "Fucking hell, I'm tired. Why is it that driving to someplace always seems to last for-fucking-ever?"

Nate rubs his hand over Brad's, winding their fingers together and feeling the scars and callouses on Brad's palm. "You could have waited, come up in the morning."

"No, I couldn't." 

Brad must find the television remote, because it clicks on, and they watch the late news in silence. Against his back, Nate can feel Brad's breathing slow, but despite his professed tiredness, he doesn't fall asleep. 

Over the low murmur of the news anchors, Nate says, "I already hate having to plan everything. I want to just - be able to see you when I want."

"Welcome to being my significant other," Brad mumbles. He presses a kiss to the back of Nate's neck, then asks, "Is that okay?"

"Is what okay?"

Nate feels Brad's mouth touch his skin again. "This." 

"Yeah." 

"This?" He kisses the side of Nate's neck this time, underneath his ear, and Nate shivers and murmurs his assent.

Brad keeps his head there, just breathing against Nate's skin. He doesn't speak or move for so long that Nate starts to wonder if he's fallen asleep - Nate's drifting a little himself - and then Brad says, "I love you, you know."

Nate reaches back to lay a gentle hand on Brad's thigh. He's still not entirely sure he trusts this, without the pull of the bond between them, keeping them each in the other's orbit. But he also knows Brad won't say things he doesn't mean. "I do know."

Brad doesn't say anything else, and after a minute, Nate hears his breathing even out and knows Brad's asleep. Carefully, he feels for the remote and turns off the television, dropping the room into darkness. 

*

He wakes with a start sometime just after dawn, pale light curling around the edges of the curtains. Brad's still next to him, breath steady with sleep. But when Nate turns over, he can see that Brad must have gotten up some time in the night, because his t-shirt and jeans have been replaced with an old pair of PT sweats. There's a speckled bleach stain on his knee. 

Nate still dreams of Iraq, but not often, and the sweating, wake-up-shouting nightmares are blessedly rare. These days when he dreams about OIF, his subconscious reminds him of small things. Waving villagers, the odd beauty of the desert so unlike anything at home, bright explosions that his waking self knows are bombs, but his dreaming self sees only as incredible fireworks. Sometimes people are still bleeding, but he feels set apart from those, as though he's watching from very far away. His bird's-eye view now takes him over the top of the amusement park, instead of in the road with the moaning, dying Suhar. 

Now, he watches Brad's face, wondering if Brad is dreaming. 

*

"So did you want to play actual tourists today?" Brad asks, over omelets and toast. Dishes of fruit sit at the ten o'clock to their plates; Nate pokes at his. It's cantaloupe, mostly. 

"I did grow up here, you know. We don't have to play tourist. I could show you around - if you want."

Brad nods once, and so after they're done eating, they take Nate's car and go on the Fick tour of Baltimore. Which means Nate drives past the house he'd grown up in, the cycling track he'd spent hours on in high school, and finally his elementary school while Brad laughs at him, because Nate's afraid they'll get pointed out as perverts.

"But we're honorable war heroes," Brad points out.

Nate glances over as he slows to stop a red light. "I only wish that went as far as it used to. You know what I hear instead? Lonetree. Whitman. _Oswald_."

"We can also claim at least half a dozen astronauts."

"And _Shaggy_."

Brad's eyes widen slightly. "I cannot believe you know that."

Nate sings a few bars of "It Wasn't Me", just to see the look on Brad's face. It's worth it.

"I read your stuff," Brad says later, as they walk down a street in Little Italy, looking for a restaurant that Nate remembers being amazing. 

"Yeah?" Nate scans the storefronts, not sure if they're on the right block. There's a green awning on the one he's looking for, he's sure of it. "Should I delete it all?"

Brad's fingertips skim his arm and drop away just as quickly. "No. No, Nate. It's great," he says, then pauses briefly. "Is it really how you felt? I... didn't know."

There's wonder in his voice, and Nate looks at him hurriedly, feeling startled by Brad's admission. "But you did know," he murmurs.

"Not everything." Brad's touch returns, lingering another few seconds this time, and Nate can feel warmth through the thin material of his shirt. "Especially in Iraq; I couldn't tell how you actually felt. There were few brief flashes, maybe, here and there. Mostly I didn't know what the fuck was happening." 

He takes a deep breath, making it obvious that he's done talking about _it_. "I read all the op-eds that the Times got out of you - you should publish _more_."

Nate makes a face at him. It's the same face he makes at everyone who tells him he should write more, because writing about the platoon felt too personal, too close. Some things he'd been okay with sharing, mostly because Evan had already chronicled them. But there were other things that he wanted to keep tucked away, possibly forever. 

Brad's still giving him an expectant look, so he says, "The climate right now isn't all that favorable towards our presence in Iraq, and you know it. No one wants to read military justifications, and I don't want it to get too personal."

"But you should make it personal. That's what people want to read." Brad's expression is serious and confident. "And unlike the shitstorm that Reporter's book unleashed, people in the Corps still have great respect for you. Even if you did leave us for yet more Ivy League education." 

Nate elbows him for that. Quietly, he asks, "Could you imagine trying to do this if I was still in?"

"No. I couldn't." 

Brad doesn't say any more on the topic. Nate he sees the restaurant he's looking for. "This one," he says, and holds open the door.

*

On Sunday, after Brad's left to go back to Lejeune, Nate stops at his parents' for a cup of coffee before driving home. He sits at the kitchen table with his mother and they talk about safe, neutral things. It's not until she follows him from the house as he's leaving that he realizes how pale their conversation has been. He turns to say something, but she beats him to it. "Nate. You didn't bring up anything but school. Your father and I worry about you, you know. Don't you ever think about finding someone, maybe settling down?" 

Nate says, "I already have," without first vetting the words. _Shit._ The look on his mother's face says it all, and he sighs. It's past time to tell people. They're all adults. Nate leans back against his car. "I've been with someone -"

"Maybe we should go inside again," his mom interrupts, gesturing towards the house. 

Nate shakes his head. "No, Mom, it's fine. Honestly, I should have told you months ago, before Brad was deployed."

He sees her eyes widen as she figures it out, and then she puts her hand on his arm. "Oh, honey, you know we'd never -"

"It's okay," Nate hurries to stop her from giving the same _it doesn't matter to us if you're gay_ speech that he'd gotten once in high school when someone else on the team had come out. He's twenty-eight years old, and he knows his parents' feelings on the subject. "It's sort of - what Brad and I have, it would seem strange to anyone else, but it works for us. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you sooner; I know you just want me to be happy."

"Are you happy?"

Nate nods, looking up at the sunny May sky. "Yeah. I think I am."

*

Brad's USMC sweatshirt is in his bag again. Nate stops in the middle of shoving laundry into the machine to finger the worn material. Then he pulls it on over his t-shirt. There's no headache for it to relieve now, just loneliness. 

_Still feels weird,_ he writes to Brad later over email, thinking out every word before typing. _I got so used to it that now it feels like part of me is missing. I don't like not knowing what you're feeling. I didn't realize how much that surety meant to me until it was gone._

 _Shut up,_ Brad writes back an hour later as Nate is skimming journal articles. _I'll tell you as many times as it takes: I love you._

*

Their old routine of daily emails and phone calls picks up again as the months go by. Sometimes Nate logs in to Skype and they watch ESPN together, exchanging the occasional quip about whatever game is on. It's not the same as Brad being there, but on the days they're both busy and don't talk at all, Nate feels like he's missed something important. 

_This is what having a long-distance relationship is like,_ he tells himself, at those times when he remembers he's actually _in_ a long-distance relationship. It's not like he's really looking at other people, but he'll see couples walking hand-in-hand down the street and need to stop and count in his head just how many days are left before he can see Brad again.

He buys an actual calendar and puts it next to his bed, crosses off the squares one by one. 

*

In November, Brad writes, _I'm off on a training exercise for six weeks. South Pacific. Don't forget about me while I'm gone._

 _I could never,_ Nate writes back. _Stay safe._

 _Anyone else would have given up on this by now, all this shit I make you put up with. I love you for trying._ It's more open than Brad's emails usually are. Nate grins down at his phone before turning it off and putting it away before the lecture starts.

*

In March, he's got a week off, and drives down to Jacksonville without a second thought. He's lying on the couch in Brad's apartment, laptop balanced on his knees, when Brad comes through the door. "I can stay until Saturday," Nate says with a wave, before Brad can do anything but blink at him in shock at Nate's surprise appearance in his living room. 

Brad shakes his head, laughs and says, "I can't believe you drove the whole damn way down here, shit."

"You gave me a key, and I'm so fucking tired of motels. Come here."

Brad walks over and Nate sets his laptop aside, then tugs Brad down on top of him. "I missed you," he whispers. Brad smiles, close, and kisses him. His BDUs are crisp under Nate's hands. 

Nate kisses back as hard as he dares, eager to be close, and Brad growls and drops his full weight down onto him. Nate runs his hands over as much of Brad as he can reach as they keep kissing - desperate suddenly, the heat of Brad's mouth all he can focus on, barely pausing for air. 

Brad seems just as overcome, pressing him down against the cushions, working a thigh between Nate's. Nate arches up against him, biting at Brad's lower lip.

"Bedroom?" Brad gasps.

Nate shakes his head. "Right here."

"Fuck, let me get my boots off."

Brad sits up and Nate follows him. As Brad unlaces his boots, Nate reaches through his arms to unbutton his blouse and unbuckle his belt. Brad kicks the boots off his feet, then catches Nate in another kiss. "You're in a hurry," he says, and it turns into a groan as Nate squeezes his dick through his pants. " _Nate_."

Nate hasn't felt this needy since Brad had gotten home from Iraq. The desire to feel Brad's skin on his is almost overwhelming now. "Take your clothes off."

Brad does, although he has to get off the couch to do it. Nate pulls his own sweatshirt up over his head and undoes his jeans, freeing his cock. 

Brad says his name again, a wrecked expression on his face, and crashes down on top of him once more. Their kisses turn messy, and Nate gets his hand around Brad's cock and starts to stroke, wanting nothing more than the feel of Brad losing control against him. 

"Wait, hold on - I want -" Brad starts.

Nate presses his face against Brad's neck, wanting to feel his pulse. "What do you want?"

"I want you to fuck me. But the lube's in the bedroom."

Nate pulls back and looks at him, searching for truth in Brad's expression. Brad's flushed and his neck is red from the stubble on Nate's face, and he stares back openly.

"Go get it."

Brad goes. Nate strips off what remains of his clothing. Then he waits. Brad seems to be gone forever. "What the fuck were you doing in there, resting up?" he demands when Brad comes back into the room. 

Brad flashes a lazy grin. "Had to get myself ready," he replies, tossing a condom onto Nate's chest. 

"Oh." Nate swallows, his mind suddenly full of images of Brad fingering himself. "I could have - helped with that."

"You can finger-fuck me into oblivion some other time," Brad answers, casually, like he knows _exactly_ what Nate was thinking there for a minute. 

Nate puts the condom on with surprisingly steady hands. Brad gets a knee on either side of his hips, one hand one Nate's shoulder and the other gripping the back of the sofa. His breathing grows fast and harsh as Nate presses the head of his cock to Brad's slicked-up hole. "Now, Nate," he groans, and sinks down onto Nate's cock. 

Nate wants to close his eyes at the sensation, but he also wants to watch Brad's face. A thousand emotions are playing out over it: lust, and pain, and lust again. What looks to Nate like disbelief. Something overwhelming, because Brad ducks his head for a moment and doesn't move. 

Nate's a little afraid to break the silence but he murmurs anyway, "Are you okay?"

Brad nods. His fingertips dig into Nate's shoulder. Experimentally, Nate rolls his hips, still watching Brad's face. Brad's grip gets tighter for a moment, then relaxes. "Okay, come on," he pants, and his expression opens again as his head tips back. 

_Miss you, want you, love you,_ Nate thinks. _All the time._

"Me too," Brad whispers, and Nate honestly doesn't know if he said that out loud or if Brad had read his mind. Could be either, could be both. He's pretty sure it doesn't matter anymore.

Later, they wake up in a sticky tangle of limbs on the couch. Nate's back is aching, a screaming protest against the odd angle at which he'd fallen asleep. Brad pulls him into the shower, and after fifteen minutes of cool water and Brad's thumbs pressing hard between his shoulderblades, he feels awake and alert again.

"I know a great barbeque joint," Brad says, once they're dressed. "It's an hour's ride on the bike, though."

"Sounds good."

The helmet that Brad hands him dulls most of the sounds of the road; it's just Nate and his thoughts and his arms around Brad's waist. Brad drives fast but his control is excellent and Nate knows it, so he just closes his eyes and lets the vibration of the bike move through his body. It settles at the base of his skull just like the bond used to do, curling up and lying down with a sigh.

*

Brad comes to his graduation, but Nate doesn't see that he's there until after. He manages to blend into the crowd a little, in his dark suit. Nate's never seen him in a suit before. 

"Your family isn't here?" Brad asks, when Nate can break free of his classmates, finding Brad in the parking lot next to a rental car.

"I told them they didn't have to make the drive. They're throwing me a party tomorrow, at my parents' house down in Baltimore."

"Am I invited?"

Nate reaches over, slides his fingers through Brad's. "I think it's time, don't you?"

Brad nods. Then, in full view of anyone who might be watching, he leans in and kisses Nate. And Nate returns the kiss, cupping his hand around the back of Brad's neck, not caring who might see them. 

"I think I'll start doing that a lot," Brad murmurs, and Nate says, his heart pounding, "Okay."

That night, he lets Brad walk him backwards into the bedroom and slowly peel his clothes off, piece by piece. Lets Brad push him gently back onto the sheets and crawl up after him.

Brad presses a kiss to the inside of his thigh, just above his knee. "You know," he breathes, the words warm against Nate's skin, the flow of air giving Nate goosebumps, "this isn't any more convenient to life than it was before, but I really don't give a fuck anymore."

Nate shivers. Brad moves up an inch and then he looks up, and the sharpness of his gaze gives way to tenderness as he says, "You're it for me, Nate. I mean it. For the rest of my life." 

Nate can feel the weight of it holding him down and lifting him up, all at the same time. 

*

They drive to Baltimore together the next day and Nate introduces Brad to his family, watches both his parents hug Brad as if he was one of their own. His sister elbows him in the side, hissing, "Damn, Nate. You could have said. And you definitely could have told us he was that attractive."

"Shut up," he laughs. He meets Brad's eyes and Brad smiles, quiet and private, a look that's just for Nate. 

Stephanie looks between the two of them. "Well, that's serious," she says. 

"Yes," Nate replies without hesitation. "It is."

He finds Brad later, after most of the party has gone home, out in the back yard laying in the hammock that's strung between two trees. He's staring up at the darkening sky and holding a bottle of beer on his stomach. Nate tries to move quietly, but Brad must see him out of the corner of his eye, and watches him approach. 

Nate stops next to the hammock. He says, "I need to tell you something," and Brad just arches a brow. "I've been asked to teach in Kabul, at the COIN Academy," he continues, holding Brad's gaze. "I'm going to say yes, and I'll leave next month."

Brad nods. "How long?"

"It's only a two-week commitment."

The corner of Brad's mouth twitches into a smile. "Jesus, Nate, way to make it sound like you'll be gone for six months to a year." He reaches out and curls his fingers loosely around Nate's wrist. 

"You know -"

"Yeah, I know." Brad keeps looking at him with the same slightly amused, but mostly tender expression. "I don't care as long as you come home." 

Nate loves him so much it's almost painful, a hard catch in his throat. He digs in his pocket for the ring he'd bought a few weeks ago, because it's ridiculous that he's been wearing his for more than a year now and never gotten one for Brad. He presses it into Brad's palm. "Whether you wear it or not, I figured you should have one."

Brad holds the platinum circle up to the fading light. Then he slides it without fanfare onto the ring finger of his left hand. "You might want to get yours resized," he says dryly, a smile on his face as he runs his hand up Nate's arm. 

Nate rubs the ring on his thumb, then nudges the hammock with his thigh, making Brad swing slightly. "I'm taking it to the jeweler's this week. I wanted to wear it today."

"Your father asked me," Brad says quietly. "If the ring was from me, I mean."

"And?"

"I said it was. And then he sort of casually said, 'Nate's been wearing that ring for quite a while.'"

Nate grins at Brad's impression of his father. "And?"

"And I said, yes, sir, he has." Brad returns the grin. "And he muttered something that could have been about you making an honest man of me, or possibly about how we might be emotionally retarded idiots who kept their relationship a secret much longer than was actively warranted."

"Yes, I'm _sure_ he said that, exactly," Nate says dryly, laughing. Part of him still can't believe that this is for real, that Brad is still here and wants to be with him. And then he remembers that Brad was the one to acknowledge everything first, and the one willing to make the silent declaration that rode on Nate's thumb, keeping a promise no matter where in the world he was.

Brad tugs on his elbow. "You look serious. Think we can both fit in this hammock?"

"We can try." Nate very carefully climbs in next to Brad. He's reminded of Brad's first trip to Boston, how it had taken some arranging to fit them both on the couch because they just didn't know what to do with each other, and how he hadn't wanted to move again once they'd figured it out. 

Like that night, Brad's arm settles loose and warm across his back. Nate closes his eyes. Brad's lips brush over his temple as he asks, "What were you thinking about, just now, when you looked at me with that serious inner conflict face of yours?"

Nate turns it over in his mind for a moment. "You got this way before I did," he answers, and has to swallow hard against the sudden rawness of his voice. "You said okay; you gave in and all I could think about for so long was how much it hurt."

Brad's hand slides slowly up his back with infinite gentleness. Nate sucks in the deepest breath he can manage. "Then I just wanted to be careful about it - like walking on ice, afraid that any second it could break."

"You didn't trust me."

"I didn't trust myself. I knew you meant it from the minute you signed those papers with your lawyer." Still with closed eyes, he traces the line of Brad's collarbone through his thin t-shirt. "We got the chance to do things for real and I was still just terrified of fucking it up -"

"- but you didn't fuck it up -"

"- but somehow you're still here. You didn't give up on me. Even when I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. Brad, I still don't know if I'm doing this right."

Then he feels Brad's hand squeeze his shoulder. "Hey. Nate, look at me."

Nate opens his eyes. Brad's expression is firm, the same set look he gets when a mission's fixed in his mind. "It doesn't fucking matter," Brad says. "Do you hear me? We're still going to make stupid mistakes and live a couple thousand miles apart for a while, and none of it will be easy. But we've made it work this long. And I trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone in my whole damned life. You need to let that be enough."

Nate stares at him for a long time. Then he says, "Yes," and kisses Brad hard enough that the hammock swings back and forth. He spreads his hand wide over Brad's chest. Under his palm, the cadence of Brad's heartbeat matches his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear GK fandom: Thank you so much for all the love you have shown the original story. Everyone who left a comment or kudos: you are great, and I really appreciate it. I am so sorry that this one took me a freaking year and a half to write.
> 
> Thanks to my usual crew, who watched this story go from three paragraphs of exposition eighteen months ago to what it is today. I would never have finished this without you guys cheering me on.


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